


mister in-between

by DevilishKurumi



Series: you're a bad man, cronus ampora, and you know it. [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, Collegestuck, Dubious Consent, Humanstuck, M/M, Past Abuse, Rape/Non-con References, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 15:46:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevilishKurumi/pseuds/DevilishKurumi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cronus finds an easy target in Kankri, but even easy targets come with consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mister in-between

**Author's Note:**

> i'm really sorry

            The party had been a total drag until you'd picked out the lonely looking kid in a red sweater, sitting uncomfortably on the couch and looking out of place with the festive environment.  An easy mark, to be honest, and if you were a little more sober, maybe you'd say he was _too_ easy, but you're pretty sure you wouldn't think that even if you were stone-cold and stringing along all the guys and gals you could get.

            So, you end up talking to him, the lonely little freshman in a red sweater, too chubby to be anything but fat, too flat-nosed and flushed-cheek to be really attractive, and you think, hey, easy.  Piece of cake.  He's already been drinking a little too, it looks like, because when you offer him a solo cup by way of introduction, he takes it and drinks it and only kind of makes a face at the taste.

            You tune him out pretty quick, truth be told.  You hear him say shit about his classes, maybe, and something about prejudice and racism and gender and all the other shit that you don't give a crap about when you it see on Tumblr from time to time.  You supply emphatic "uh-huh's" and "yeah's" and "you don't say's", but you're not listening.  You're contemplating how you want to fuck him the entire time he talks, so engrossed in what he's saying that he doesn't see or feel you scooting closer, putting your hand on his knee, leaning in with entirely fake interest.  He's so enamored with hearing himself speak that he doesn't even really look at you.  Half the time, he talks with the half-lidded eyes of someone pretending to be superior to another.  You're okay with that.  You want him to feel like you're totally enamored with hearing him talk, too.

            You give him another few drinks while he talks, grabbing them from the coffee table when someone puts them down to go to the bathroom or whatever.  He's getting pretty sloppy drunk.  When you lean in and give him the _look_ , all low-lidded and sultry and pretty much irresistible for any drunk freshman who hasn't gotten hit on by an upperclassman yet, he makes this funny little noise and starts talking about Uganda or something.

            You're really, wholly and completely uninterested in Uganda, so instead you kiss him.  He shuts up real quick, and he kind of kisses back, but you think he might be more moving his mouth to say something than actually kissing, but who cares because he's not pushing you away.  That's consent, you know that.

            Except he does kind of push you away, a fumbling little move to your shoulders, and you frown at him with all the hurt in your eyes that you can muster when you're really not hurt at all.  You've got crocodile tears to spare.

            "Uh," he says, and then frowns, and that's kind of cute, you guess, but you're also really drunk.  "I'm not - sure that I'm comfortable with the level of affection you're presenting, though I understand if that sounds rude."  And then he says, "I'm - asexual," in this not-so-sure voice.  He adds, haltingly still, "Or demisexual, possibly, though I still haven't been able to read enough about it to see whether or not I agree with that label quite yet-"

            "Dunno what that means," you say, and curl a finger against one of his short, wispy sideburns.  He clears his throat and looks at the ground, at the back of the couch - anything but you.

            "It means that I don't, ah.  Engage in romantic situations with people who I don't know very well."

            You smile and say, "I feel like I've known you for ages after all this talking.  You mean to tell me you don't feel the same way?"

            He makes this uncomfortable little laughing sound, and he doesn't push you away again when you lean in for another kiss, even if he squirms a little.  He's letting you, though, which is pretty sweet.  You try to encourage a little reciprocation - nobody likes a dead fish - but it's hard going because you're pretty sure he's never kissed somebody before.

            You think he maybe starts to get into it, and so you move in, pressing your palm against the front of his mom jeans, and he's definitely hard and definitely turned on by the way you scrape his lip with your teeth, so you're pretty sure that rules out the asexual thing.

            Then he's making this awful, sobbing-shocked noise and shoving you away and bolting for the bathroom, and you realize that okay, you probably might've crossed a line there that you hadn't realized was actually a line.  "What the fuck?"

            Meenah's glaring at you from across the room.  You can practically feel her eyes on you, and when you meet them, all you can see is, _I knew you were a bad man, Cronus Ampora._   And that shit fucking hurts, real deep, because you're not a bad guy just for wanting to get into a freshman's pants.  Jesus.

            Shit, she looks like she's ready to come talk to you - and by talk to, you're pretty sure you mean _beat up_ , so you quickly skip out on the couch scene and hightail it after the red-sweatered kid.  Karus?  Kansas?  Something like that.  You better find him before someone else does, like Porrim or - God help you - Meenah, because he's a blabbermouth and if he says you tried something funny, people might get the wrong idea about you.

            There's no line for the bathroom, and some people are giving the closed door a side-eyed glance, so you try there first.  You're pretty sure the bedroom is occupado, anyway.  You rap your knuckles on the door, summon up all your mental fortitude, and say, "Uh.  You okay in there?"

            You have to lean up against the door to hear the muffled hiccupping coming from inside, but you do hear it, and you kind of feel bad.  You probably shouldn't have jumped the gun so quick there.  The night's not so late that you couldn't have let the Jacuzzi heat up a bit more before jumping in, so to speak.

            The kid's still not saying anything, though, so you try again.  "Look, don't freak out so bad, okay?  I didn't mean anythin' by it.  ...You, uh, need a ride, or somethin', maybe?"

            There's no response, just more hiccupping and ugly, drunken-sorority-girl sobbing, so after a minute or two, you just say, "Fuck it," and bail.  Who even cares?  He'll get over it, whatever his issue is.  Hell, it's probably just a matter of realizing he's not whatever sexuality he thought he was before.  You remember your first time realizing you were bi, after all, and that shit hit you pretty hard at first.  You'd been riding in some guy's car, or his dad's car, all leather interior and a V-8 engine and -

            You're kind of hazy on the rest of that memory, so you drink and talk to a couple acquaintances and avoid Meenah at all costs.  It's about twenty minutes later that you realize you need a cigarette, so you make your way through the groups of people scattered around the apartment, pulling out your pack of Lucky's and tapping one out of the soft-pack like you know what you're doing.  Mostly because you do.  You've been smoking since you were thirteen - you're an old hat at this shit.

            It's not until you step off the front porch into the cool autumn night and flick your lighter that you realize sweater kid is hanging around outside.  He looks sad and miserable and really, really drunk, and most importantly, Damara has her fingers on the sleeve of his sweater and is pulling that broken-English bullshit act on him.  He looks really fucking uncomfortable.  More than he did with you.  Not that you blame him - you might, admittedly, be a little bit overly forward from time to time, but Damara is a whole crazy sack of cats that even Meenah wouldn't compare you to.

            "Hey," you say, inhaling and breathing out smoke over Damara's face.  She looks at you with narrowed eyes and jeeze, if looks could kill you'd be cremated and sitting on a mantle somewhere.  "Hate to say it, but I'm this kid's designated tonight, so you're gonna have to head on in to find someone else to chat with.  You get me, hot stuff?"

            You don't like calling Damara out, because she's... well, she's a fucking crazy sonofabitch and if you cross her, it's entirely likely that she'll find you with a tire-iron later, but you don't like being privy to her gross abuse of upperclassmen privileges more.  She pulled that shit on you when _you_ were a freshman, and to be fucking honest?  Yeah, you wouldn't wish her on anybody.

            She doesn't call _you_ out, which is nice, because sometimes she starts talking in her fake broken English (bullshit, like you say, you learned pretty quick that she's perfectly fluent), and instead takes your invite and wanders away with a cool, "Nice to talk, please."

            Red-sweater kid - Kankri, that's his name - looks at you and exhales.  "I'm -"

            "Don't worry about it," you say, because you're not sure you want to hear him say that he's still uncomfortable around you.  You'd rather just assume he was about to thank you for saving him from the bitchtits crazy broad back there.  "The hell are you doin' out here, though?  I thought you were inside."

            "I..."  He pulls on his sweater and says, "I was just - looking for my ride, but he - I suppose he's already left, sometimes he forgets about me, and..."

            The kid has drop-out eyes - the kind of look that Mituna got before he met Latula and realized he could keep pushing through the bullshit school system - and you feel maybe a little responsible.  This has probably been a pretty uncool night for him.  You attribute that mostly to Damara's presence.

            "Hey, cool," you say, "I was just about to book it.  You wanna lift?"  He looks so uncomfortable at the very thought of riding in a car with you that you feel genuinely offended.  "Hey," you say, frowning, ready to pull on some of those crocodile tears if you've got to, "I'm not a bad guy, okay?  I got a little overzealous, alright.  I just think you're cute, so of course I couldn't resist.  But hey, you don't want me touchin' you?  I got you.  I'm really a nice guy, all right?"

            He's drunk enough to believe all that, and so he nods, slowly.  "Uh.  I suppose - but I live twenty minutes away, so that may not be something you could do..."

            Twenty minutes?  Plenty of time to reheat the platter and see if anything's still salvageable here.  "Nah, no problemo.  I'm not gonna leave a freshie out here in the cold."  Speaking of - you pull your flask out of your back pocket and hold it out to him.  "Here, by the way.  Take a sip of this, it'll help you with the shock of dealing with Megido."

            "I'm not sure I should," he says.  You put on your hurt face again.

            "It's just whiskey.  It's cool if you don't want any, but it'll make you feel better."

            He hesitates just a little longer, but sure enough he takes the flask and swigs a little back, barely enough to wet his lips.  He makes an ugly face and hands it back, but you can see from the way he touches his throat through his turtleneck that he's enjoying the burn.  That's good.

            "C'mon," you say, and lead him into the parking lot for the student apartments.  Your car - a Plymouth Roadrunner you'd gotten when you graduated high school - is smooth enough that even Kankri looks impressed, and you help him into the passenger seat so he doesn't scratch the paint.  You slide in on the bench seat and, despite the fact that you're still kind of hammered, you run the baby like you were born to do it.  Kankri looks a little less upset, but still... pretty uncomfortable.  When you drop your hand onto the gearshift, you see him wriggle away from you on the seat, and you frown.

            "Hey now," you say, pulling out of the apartment complex and onto the main street, "Don't wig out on me, bro.  We're cool, you and me.  I'm not gonna be putting my hand anywhere you don't want it, you read me?"

            He nods and tries not to look upset.  You offer him the flask, and he takes it, sipping at it now and again as he gives you vague directions that you're pretty sure aren't all that right.  He looks pretty fucked up, you realize.  Maybe you should take the flask away.

            "So, a-sexual," you say, dragging out the first syllable like it's something impressive, "How's that goin'?"

            "It's - I'm not," he says, finally, sagging, "I don't think.  I think I just thought I was, because...  I don't know.  Things.  My dad's a pastor," he says.  You grin at the thought of nailing the son of a preacher man.  That's all good to you.  "So I guess I.  Never got much of a... thing.  About that kind of stuff.  And I read a lot of Wikipedia articles that sounded okay.  So I guess that's where that's going."

            "Yeah, didn't feel so asexual to me," you laugh, and ignore the fact that he doesn't laugh with you.  "That's cool, okay.  College is all about, you know.  Figurin' out who you are and shit.  You just need a cool head, and to not go runnin' into the bathroom to cry like a bitch whenever you get a little surprised by yourself."

            He swallows.  "I'm sorry," he says, like it was his fault.

            "It's okay," you say, forgiving him like you think it was his fault too.  "Just don't flip out so much, yeah?"  He doesn't say anything to that, just mumbles something about turning left on Orangethrope, and so you pick up the slack.  "So, uh, what are you majoring in?"

            "Sociology," he says, then looks at you.  "I thought I said that."

            You heave a sigh, like you don't want to tell him but you just _have_ to be honest, and say, "To tell you the truth, Kankri, I wasn't really listenin' to all that you were sayin'.  I was distracted by how cute you are."

            "Oh," he says.  Then, hesitantly, "Really?"

            _Jackpot_ , you think, and say, "Yeah, really.  Truth be told, you got me pretty riled up in there.  Still trying to work it outta my system."

            He's silent for a moment, and then he asks again, "Really?"

            "Yeah," you say, and adjust yourself through your jeans.  You glance and see that his eyes are on your hand.  You can't tell under the street lights if he looks uncomfortable, but you don't think he is.  Or at least, not supremely so.  "I should actually be pretty mad at you, how worked up I am over you.  For a preacher's kid, you sure know how to turn a guy on."

            He's sipping from your flask again, staring wide-eyed across the bench seat, and when he says, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize," you wonder if you could just ask him to take care of it.

            "It's okay," you say.  "I'm just gonna be in agony until I get you sorted."

            "Oh."  He buys that, which is something you had kind of guessed at, because he looks like the kind of guy who has no idea how painful getting blue-balled might actually be (especially if he's rarely turned on, which you figure might be the case).

            "Unless..."  You trail off significantly, don't look at him, and make the left on Orangethrope without signaling.  "Nah, never mind."

            "Huh?"

            "Driving with a hard on is pretty difficult, you know?  'Cos you gotta be moving your leg this way and that, on the pedals and all.  It's kind of crazy.  Might be able to do a little better if I get this taken care of.  Get you home quicker and all that."

            Kankri wriggles and turns his head to look out the window.  You almost tell him not to, because it'll make him sick, but before you can, he says, "Um.  If it's - really so difficult for you, I won't look, or anything."

            _We have a winner_ , you think, and sigh with untold amounts of relief.  "You won't mind?  I mean, I don't wanna make you upset or nothin'."

            He hesitates, and you can see him thinking about how you're a junior and he's a freshman and how he should save face in front of you.  "No, really.  It's.  Fine, I don't mind."

            You slow the car, not by a lot but enough so you can focus on driving one-handed and drunk, and unzip your fly with another relieved sigh - this one more sincere than the last.  You're as hard as you've ever been, even this drunk - which maybe isn't as drunk as you keep thinking - and you see that Kankri has his face towards the window still, even as you start stroking yourself, one hand on the wheel, keeping the car relatively straight.  He mumbles out a direction and you take it, imagining how easy it would be to pull under one of the streetlamps and just see if you could get Kankri up on you a little first, before you got him home again.

            "It's real hard driving one-handed," you murmur, and he swallows thickly.  You wonder at it, and try to see if he's crying or something, because it kind of sounds like that, but he isn't.  He's just watching the scenery intensely.  "Hey," you say, keeping your voice all low, calm, brotherly even, "You don't have to look away if you don't wanna.  I know you might be curious.  Never really seen another dick in real life, right?"

            Kankri shakes his head, but he doesn't look at you.  You imagine him sucking you off while you drive and mumble little pleased noises.  "Not gonna make me feel weird if you want to get an eyeful," you say.

            He doesn't look, not right away, but as you near the turn he indicated a minute or two ago, he does swoop his head to look, and you're pleased to see that he really hadn't been crying.  You're having some trouble keeping your eyes on the road, though, but that's okay.  You can fix that soon enough.

            He watches you stroke yourself, pressing your thumb under the head of your dick, biting your lip for effect, feeling pretty kinky and turned on just by having him watch you, and then you say, "You wanna touch it?"

            He starts, and looks at you with big eyes that are actually kind of cute, not just sarcastic, trying-to-get-in-his-pants cute, and you add, "I mean, it'd help, since I should keep both hands on the wheel, you know?"

            You don't say _but it's cool if you don't_.  You figure it's probably implied.

            He swallows and gnaws on his lip and then, all slowly, like he doesn't know how to move his arm right, he sort of reaches across, then halts near about the middle of the seat.  You take your hand off your dick and grip his wrist lightly.  "It's okay," you say, "It's all cool," and when you pull his hand down to your dick, he doesn't yank it away.  He just sort of tries to mimic you, a little loose-gripped and unknowledgeable as shit, but that's okay.  You put both hands on the wheel and let him fumblingly jerk you off.  "Yeah, that's it," you say, and you groan a little and gasp when he runs his thumb under the head the way you like.  You think about maybe pulling off again, to see if you can get a little more out of him.  A blowjob, definitely.  He's got a big mouth, after all, he'd probably be a pro in no time.

            But then, you make the mistake of looking at him under the passing lamplight.

            His eyes are all wide, and a little watery, and he looks confused and hurt and guilty and you're suddenly stuck remembering the time your brother came home late from a party, fourteen years old, a crying, trembling wreck, and how you'd sat on the edge of the bathtub as he threw up in the toilet and cried and said, " _never, ever, ever_ ," like he'd really been hurt, a bone-shattering kind of hurt.  You'd felt like too big a man to ask what had happened.  You didn't really need to ask, anyway.  You'd been seventeen and you'd known how hard fourteen could be for a kid, and you hadn't asked.  He'd cried for four hours and then locked himself in his room.  You remember how, just a few short months before that, your then-thirteen-year-old brother had asked you to jerk him off, and how you hadn't said no, even though you'd felt kind of weird about it, but that was okay because it was better he learned how that shit went from you than some other person.

            And that kind of reminds you, all of a sudden, about the foggy first-time memory you had, where you'd been almost thirteen and a junior had taken you under his wing and driven you out to the empty pre-construction land on the edge of town, and when he'd asked, " _You wanna touch it?_ " you'd refused and gotten called a pussy until you gave in.  All his friends thought you were fucking awesome after that, though, and they'd let your ride with them and smoke with them and drink, a few times, but you had a shitty tolerance at thirteen and a kid brother to look after, so you didn't really do all that much.  They'd gotten you laid when you were thirteen and a quarter and you had been the coolest kid in your class.

            You think about that car and the muggy weather and something clicks in the back of your head, like you might be maybe about to think about other shit you don't want to think about, and you feel suddenly, truly, sick to your fucking stomach.

            "Shit," you say, and push Kankri away, not that it's too hard because he'd been kind of slacking off, with this weird look on his face as he stared at you.  "Shit, never mind, sorry."

            "Did I do something wrong?" you hear him ask, and you really, fucking, _hate that_ _question_.

            " _No,_ " you snap, "Fuckin' - no, you're okay.  Shit."  You fumble yourself back into your pants and you feel like you're really gonna start puking.  You pull over haphazardly and gulp down air and lean out the window, just in case.  "Shit.  You're fine, Kankri.  Just got fuckin', you know.  Dizzy, and shit.  Still kinda buzzed."

            "Oh," he says.

            You take a few more deep breaths, then pull back onto the road and ask, "What's the next cross street?"

            Kankri fumbles to remember where his place is, and then he directs you quietly down a road, across an intersection, taking a left, a sharp right, needing to make a U-turn...

            "Cronus," Kankri says, and you look at him.  He doesn't seem to know what to say.  You don't know what to say either, because - not for the first time - you're thinking to yourself, _I knew you were a bad man, Cronus Ampora_ , and you're really, honestly believing it.

            Shit.

            "Look," you say, and you make the U-turn.  "Kankri.  Don't go fuckin'...  Shit.  Don't fuckin' tell anybody about this, okay?  It was a big fuckin' mistake, an' I'm sorry about that.  Not 'cos'a you, okay, don't get the wrong idea.  Just.  Not the right fuckin' time to be doin' that kind of shit."

            He hesitates.  "Okay."

            "And shit, when someone acts like a goddamn sleazebag, don't be such a fuckin' easy target!  Say fuckin' _no_ , and don't get into their goddamn cars!"  You regret saying that immediately after it leaves your mouth, and you try to fix it, because shit.  You aren't a sleazebag.  And even if you are, you're not going to fucking admit it.  "I just sorta realized you're, like.  My brother's age, or somethin'.  So I'm gettin' all overprotective here, and it kinda killed the mood, or somethin'.  Just."  You don't know what else to say, so you just shut your trap altogether.

            "Okay," he says, and he looks a little scared.  You feel like shit.  You need a drink.

            "We almost there?"

            "Yeah," he says.  Then, he asks, "Cronus, did - um.  You sound like you might have had some kind of traumatic experience, if that's not too forward for me to say, and-"

            "Just shut up about it, okay."

            Kankri nods and stays quiet until he takes you down another street, and then tells you his house is on the left, near the end of the cul-de-sac.  You swing around and let the car idle.  Kankri doesn't immediately get out.

            "...If you'd like," he says, "My dad - like I said, he's a pastor, but he's very understanding - too much so, sometimes - so.  If you need someone to talk to...?"

            "No," you say, and laugh, swatting him on the back like you didn't just have a weird fucking meltdown for no reason, "Fuck that, I'll be good to go.  You hold onto that flask, okay?  An'... you know, just.  Don't think I'm a bad guy any more, okay?"

            You realize that sounds shitty, and he looks like he realizes it too, but instead of calling you out, he just says, "Thanks for the ride," and slides out of the car.  You wait until he gets up to the front door before pulling away from the curb.

            You drive around until the sun starts rising, and you take the long way home.  Nobody lives with you, so nobody cares that you get back late, or that you fall asleep in the shower until the hot water runs out.


End file.
